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Food and security in india

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Food Science and Quality Management www.iiste.orgISSN 2224-6088 (Paper) ISSN 2225-0557 (Online)Vol 1, 2011 Food Crisis and Sustainable Food Security in India Bairagya Ramsundar (Corresponding author) Department of Economics, SambhuNath College, Labpur, Birbhum, West Bengal, India, Pin: 731303, Fax No.: +913463-266255, Email:ramsundarbairagya@gmail.com Sarkhel Jaydeb Department of Commerce, Burdwan University, Burdwan, West Bengal, India, Email: jaydebsarkhel@gmail.comAbstract:The world population is rising rapidly over the growth of food grains and as a consequence food crisisarises. There are now more than a billion malnourished people in the world meaning that almost onesixth of humanity is suffering from hunger. Fertility of land has been reduced due to over exploitation,excessive use of chemical fertilisers, insecticides and pesticides. Due to indiscriminate deforestationthe amount of rainfall reduces and land erosion takes place. Natural calamities like droughts, floods,cyclones, global warming, melting glaciers, raising sea level etc. are increasing and environment isdegraded. As a result the production of food grains decreases and made food crisis at a global level.Not only that sometimes food crisis arises not due to food shortage, there is enough food in the stockthough some people are in starvation due to some failure of public distribution system. The crisis notfood crisis, it is the policy crisis of the government. This is a tragedy from food surplus to foodscarcity. This paper concentrates on sustainable food security in the long-run in a sustainable eco-friendly manner to cover the benefit every person not only for the present but also for the futuregeneration.Kew words: Sustainable, public distribution system, body mass index, bio-fuels, green revolution,below poverty line1. IntroductionFor an individual three basic essential things are required for his survival: food, clothing and shelter. Inthe primitive community when man lived in jungles he did not have clothing or even shelter. But heneeded food to survive. Animals can live without clothing or shelter but also need food. Plants alsoneed food. While plants can make their own food man and other animals have to produce or collectfood. Thus for all living beings food is the most essential component of life. It is necessary for gettingenergy which man needs for doing different works. Even when a man is sleeping his major organs likeheart or lungs remain active. These are functioning from birth to death at a stretch. To continue theseactivities energy is required which can be derived from food. On an average intake capacity of 2250Kcal. per person per day is required Dieticians prescribe the amount of amount of calories that anindividual needs and how much calorie can be obtained from which type of food. For healthy onerequired balanced diet. In the absence of adequate and balanced food one suffers from hunger and mal-nutrition which causes many diseases. Several famines and epidemics are results of lack of food.23 | P a g ewww.iiste.org

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Food Science and Quality Management www.iiste.orgISSN 2224-6088 (Paper) ISSN 2225-0557 (Online)Vol 1, 20112. Sustainable Development Sustainable development is a pattern of resource use that aims to meet human needs while preservingthe environment so that these needs can be met not only in the present, but also for future generations.The term was used by the Brundtland Commission which coined what has become the most often-quoted definition of sustainable development as development that “meets the needs of the presentwithout compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs”. It is usually notedthat this requires the reconciliation of environmental, social and economic demands - the “three pillars”of sustainability. This view has been expressed as an illustration using three overlapping ellipsesindicating that the three pillars of sustainability are not mutually exclusive and can be mutuallyreinforcing. Sustainable development ties together concern for the carrying capacity of natural systemswith the social challenges facing humanity. As early as the 1970s “sustainability” was employed todescribe an economy in equilibrium with basic ecological support systems [Wikipedia]. A primary goalof sustainable development is to achieve a reasonable and equitable distributed level of economic wellbeing that can be perpetuated continually for next generation. Thus the field of sustainabledevelopment can be broken into three constituent parts i.e. environmental, economic and socialsustainability. It is proved that socio- economic sustainability is depended on environmentalsustainability because the socio- economic aspects, like agriculture, transport, settlement, and otherdemographic factors are born and raised up in the environmental system. All the environmental set upis depended on a piece of land where it exists. Sustainable land management is necessary forsustainable food security.3. The Concept of Food SecurityWorld Development Report (1986) defined food security as “access by all people at all times to enoughfood for an active, healthy life. According to Food and Agricultural Organisation (FAO) of the UNO,“Food security exists when all people at all times have access to sufficient and nutritious food to meetthe dietary needs and food preference for an active and healthy life.” Staatz (1990) defined foodsecurity as “The ability to assure, on a long term basis, that the food system provides the totalpopulation access to a timely, reliable and nutritionally adequate supply of food.” Thus food securitymay be of short-term or sustainable. In case of short-term food security we consider food security ofthe present population only. But in case of sustainable food security we consider the food security notonly of the present generation but also of the future generation as well. According to Swaminathan,“Sustainable food security means enough food for everyone at present plus the ability to provideenough food in future as well.” In the long-run sustainable food security is very important.According to the Ministry of Agriculture of the Government of USA, “Food security for a householdmeans access by all members at all times to enough food for an active, healthy life. Food securityincludes at a minimum (i) ready availability of nutritionally adequate and safe foods and (ii) andassured ability to acquire acceptable food in socially acceptable ways.” Here food security refers tosustainable food security. From the above definition we can get three conditions for sustainable foodsecurity. i) For food security availability of food is required. The availability or supply of food comesfrom domestic production and import from foreign countries. ii) Food security requires access orentitlement to food. Now entitlement comes either through the market system or through the socialsecurity system of the government. Members of households earn income by participating in productionprocess. They spend their income to purchase food from the market. Now suppose there arise asituation due to low income members of the household will not have enough money to buy food fromthe market. Then, even food is available in the market common people will not be able to purchasefood due to lack of purchasing power and food security will be hampered even though there is notscarcity of food in physical units. Suppose in lean season agricultural labourers have no work toperform and hence no earning income. Then they will not be able to purchase food due to lack of24 | P a g ewww.iiste.org

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Food Science and Quality Management www.iiste.orgISSN 2224-6088 (Paper) ISSN 2225-0557 (Online)Vol 1, 2011purchasing power even though enough food is available for sale in the market. In such a situation socialsecurity system can be used for maintaining access to food. For example the Government can offeremployment to the agricultural labourers under the “Food for Work” programme and thereby they canearn income to purchase food from the market. Similarly purchasing power may be provided to the oldand the invalid through transfer payments made to them. In this way entitlements to food can becreated either through the market or through the social security system. Many opined that the maincause of food crisis and famines were the non-availability of food supply. But in practical experiencewe saw that even there was no food deficit famines have occurred in many countries due to lack ofentitlement to food. The Nobel laureate economist A. K. Sen has given many examples of such faminesin his analysis in different countries of the world. He argued that there was enough food in the world tofeed everyone adequately but the problem was fair public distribution system (PDS) of food andhoardings by traders to rise in price to make profit. The crisis not food crisis, it is the policy crisis ofthe government. iii) Food absorption is necessary for food security. It is not sufficient to take food onlyto satisfy the hunger. It is necessary to see to it that the food taken is absorbed in the digestive systemand provides nutrition to the body. For this we need pure and safe drinking water, hygienicenvironment to live, primary health awareness and provision of basic education to keep theenvironment clean and healthy.The World Food Summit of 1996 defined food security as existing “when all people at all times haveaccess to sufficient, safe, nutritious food to maintain a healthy and active life”. Commonly, the conceptof food security is defined as including both physical and economic access to food that meets peoplesdietary needs as well as their food preferences. In many countries, health problems related to dietaryexcess are an ever increasing threat, In fact, mal-nutrition and food borne disease are become doubleburden. Food security is built on three pillars: i) Food availability-sufficient amount of food is availableon a consistent basis, ii) Food access-having sufficient resources to obtain appropriate foods for anutritious diet and iii) Food use- appropriate use based on knowledge of basic nutrition and care, aswell as adequate water and sanitation.4. Reasons for Global Food CrisisFrom the above discussion it is clear that only increase in the supply of food is not sufficient forsolving the food crisis to maintain food security. Apart from population growth the important causes ofglobal food crisis are the followings:4.1 Growth of PopulationRapid growth of population over the world is the main cause of food crisis. According to Malthuspopulation increase at G.P. rate while the supply of food increase at A.P. rate i.e. population grow at ahigher rate than he food supply and create food scarcity. This shortage of food gives rise to famines,epidemics, food riots etc. Due to these calamities a part of population is eliminated and a naturalbalance between population and food supply is established only in the short-run because againpopulation begins to grow at a faster rate than food supply and the economy again moves to food crisis.In this way food crisis arises in an economy at a regular interval. Malthusian theory is based on theagrarian economy which follows the law of diminishing return with no technological progress. Byintroducing new improved technology it is possible to postpone the operation of the law of diminishingreturn. By means of this introduction of new innovative techniques in agricultural production thewestern countries of the world are able to escape from this. Even if the Malthusian theory has beendiscarded, the shadow of Malthus is still haunting us.4.2 Rise in the price of oil25 | P a g ewww.iiste.org

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Food Science and Quality Management www.iiste.orgISSN 2224-6088 (Paper) ISSN 2225-0557 (Online)Vol 1, 2011The main reason for increase in food prices all over the world is increase in the price of crude oil anddevaluation of U.S. dollar. We know that there is a persistent deficit in the current account of thebalance of payments of the U.S.A. To meet this deficit the U.S.A. has to purchase more units of foreigncurrency. As a result the price of U.S. dollar in terms of foreign currencies is decreasing. Now TheOPEC countries fix the price of oil in terms of U.S. dollar. Since the value of dollar is falling in termsof foreign currencies OPEC countries will get less revenue in terms of domestic currency even if theyget same revenue in terms of U.S. dollar. To compensate this OPEC countries are forced to increase inthe price of crude oil. Since OPEC countries virtually produce nothing other than oil, they have toimport most of the necessities of life. In this way as the value of U.S. dollar falls in the internationalmarket the price of oil increases in international market. Moreover there is a close relationship betweenincrease in price of oil and increase in price of essential commodities. As a result the transportationcosts and the cost of production (because oil is used as fuel in the production process of manycommodities) increases. Finally price of food particles increase as a result of increase in price of oil.4.3 Commercialization of agricultureCrisis of energy is a global problem today. As the price of oil rises bio-fuel is used as an alternativesource of fossil fuel. Bio-fuel is produced from agricultural produce like oil seeds, food grains. Apartfrom this food products are also used for extracting ethanol. The US utilized 20% of its corn in the year2007 to 32% by the year 2016 to produce ethanol. As the price of crude oil raised the US has set atarget for producing 25 billion gallons of bio-fuel in the next 10 years and Europe has set a target of5.75% of its diesel needs extracting from plants 2011. The China is extracting ethanol not only fromcorn but even from rice and wheat. These tendencies of the developed countries are the mainresponsible for food crisis. Due to this commercialization of agricultural products production of foodgrains decreases. Finally the supply of food grains is decreasing in the global market prices of foodgrains are raising day by day.4.4 IndustrializationProduction of food grains is also decreasing due to increased use of land (which is fixed in supply bynature) for non-agricultural purposes. Due to rapid urbanization in building roads, houses, factories etceven the fertile land is used for non-agricultural purposes. Norman Borlaug rightly told, “When peoplefail to recognise farmers’ role in feeding the country, be sure there is something terribly wronghappening.” Most of the developing countries believe that industrialization is the only key indicatorfor economic development and increase in national income. Hence even if they have comparativeadvantage in agriculture they are bent on industrialization at any cost. Even fertile agricultural lands arebeing used for setting up industries. As a result the production of food grains is gradually decreasing.4.5 Environment pollutionEnvironmental pollution is indirectly responsible for food crisis. In the last few decades severalmeasures have been adopted for increasing agricultural production which has adverse effects on naturalenvironment. Fertility of land has been reduced due to over exploitation, excessive use of chemicalfertilisers, insecticides and pesticides. Due to indiscriminate deforestation the amount of rainfallreduces and land erosion takes place. Natural calamities like droughts, floods, cyclones, globalwarming, melting glaciers, raising sea level etc. are increasing and environment is degraded. As a resultthe production of food grains decreased and made food crisis at a global level. Naturally a questionarises: Is environmental degradation not acceptable for meeting the food crisis and maintaining foodsecurity? In answer to this question it can be said that additional food grains can be produced in theshort-run by degrading the environment but this food security will not be sustainable. This is so26 | P a g ewww.iiste.org

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Food Science and Quality Management www.iiste.orgISSN 2224-6088 (Paper) ISSN 2225-0557 (Online)Vol 1, 2011because food security for the present generation can be maintained by the degradation of theenvironment but then food security for the future generation cannot be maintained.4.6 Role of World Trade OrganisationUnder WTO free trade in agricultural products has been introduced. As a consequence developedcountries are still protecting their agriculture but the developing countries are forced to reduce theiragriculture. Under free trade production of food grains is considered unprofitable for many developingcountries. Due to commercialisation farmers are producing more cash crops and less food crops andthereby reducing food grains in the market. By intellectual property rights are now applicable to plantsand farmers have to depend on multinational corporations for getting HYV seeds. Again in many casesmultinational corporations are introducing genetically modified seeds which are harmful to theenvironment of the developing countries. For this reason also agricultural development of developingcountries is hampered. Ultimately production of food grains fall and causes to food crisis.4.7 Water ScarcityScarcity of water is a global problem today (Bairagya R. and Bairagya H. 2011). For agriculturalproduction huge amount of water is required. Water scarcity is related to food scarcity at a global level.In most of the developing countries, population are primarily engaged in agriculture which is theprimary source of income to maintain their livelihood. Again agricultural production is the gambling ofrainfall. To raise agricultural productivity various dams have been made in an unplanned way whichhave adversely affected to the commons and the environment. To control flood and supply irrigationwater the construction of big dams have rarely helped. In villages for irrigation many tube-wells andsubmersibles have been installed in an unplanned way (it should not be bored less than 1000 feet)which use the ground- water in a massive scale and consume a huge amount of electricity. Aspopulation raises the scarcity of food grains rises. Food scarcity is highly positively-correlated withwater scarcity. According to Lester Brown, “Water shortage may soon become food shortage”. Rice,wheat and sugar-cane together constitute 90% of total water consuming crops. From the economicpoint of view, return of water in industrial sector is many times more attractive than in agriculture.Approximately 1000 tons of water is required to produce only one ton of wheat. This monetary returnis much lower than if this water is invested in industrial sector. In this case the non-food grains likefruits, vegetables and animal products for daily food intake should be raised as substitutes to rice andwheat.5. Global ScenarioThe official global poverty statistics, based on World Bank figures, the number of people living belowthe international poverty line of 1.25 US dollar per day fell from 1.82 billion to 1.37 billion between1992 and 2005 (Global Poverty Guide 2011). China accounted for 475 million of the reduction,implying poverty has increased elsewhere over this period. In India and sub-Saharan Africa, theincrease was 21 million and 91 million respectively. One third of global poverty is located in India andjust over a quarter in sub-Saharan Africa. The main cause is not only the rising population but also thewealth of our new millennium has tended to increase in in-equality rather than to reduce poverty.UNDP has reported that in 2005 the richest 500 people in the world earned more than 416 million. TheWorld Bank’s Global Economic Prospects 2010 estimated that 64 million people are on the verge ofextreme poverty. The measurement of poverty is not flawless and is subject to some criticism. Thedeveloped countries indexes are quite different to developing countries for the inclusion of commoditybaskets to calculate the poverty. The World Bank follows the international poverty line. Based onIndia’s poverty line national poverty rate is only 28% while it is 42% on the international basis. Theprices of food particles are increasing not only in India but also in developed countries like U.S.A. and27 | P a g ewww.iiste.org

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Food Science and Quality Management www.iiste.orgISSN 2224-6088 (Paper) ISSN 2225-0557 (Online)Vol 1, 2011the U.K. Prices of essential food grains like rice, wheat and corn have been raising globally. Accordingto FAO data food price index increased from 121in 2006 to 274 in 2008. The major factor behind thisrise in food grains is historic decline in the production of food grains all over the globe.6. Indian ScenarioAccording to 2011 Census, India’s population increases 181 million people from 1.03 billion in 2001 to1.21 billion in 2011(Visaria L. 2011). The decadal growth rate of population is 17.6% compared to21.2% during 1991-2001 suggesting a slowdown of growth. It is expected that India will become themost populous country in the world by 2030 overtaking China. India’s population size is expected tostabilize at 1.8 billion at 2041.The state Uttar Pradesh is the most populous country in India with 199.6million people covering 16.5% of country’s population. The sex ratio of population has began toimprove from 927 in 1991to 933 in 2001to 940 in 2011. The overall literacy rate is in 2001 is 745 with82.1% male and 65.55 female literacy rate. The child sex ratio has fallen from 945 in 2001 to 927 in2001 to 914in 2011. Though India possesses only 2.4% of world geographical area it covers 18% oftotal world population. This high growth of population is main retarding factor of economicdevelopment. Poverty, in-equality, hunger, mal-nutrition, unemployment, food scarcity etc. are thecurse for the society today. Reduction of population growth is essential to improve the socio-economiccondition of the people and to secure sustainable food security.Creating food-surplus as an important objective of planning. India realised that food-surplus countrydictated the food-deficit countries. India suffered very severe droughts during 1965 and 1966 and at thesame time the American President restricted food aid to monthly basis under P.L.480 programme. Laterthe Prime Minister Indira Gandhi went in for seed-water-fertiliser policy popularly known as “GreenRevolution”. After the introduction of this policy India achieved self-sufficiency in food grains by theyear 1976 and onwards (except in 2006-2007). The per capita availability of food grains increased from395 grams to 445 grams per day during the period 1951 to 2007 (Datt R. and Sundharam K.P.M. 2010).In spite of that, according to National Family Health Survey (NFHS) in 2006, 46% of children below 3years are underweight, 33% women and 28% men have a Body Mass Index (BMI) below the normal,79% of children aged 6-35 months have anaemia, as do 56% of married women aged 15-49 years and24% of similar men, and 58% of pregnant women (Ghosh J. 2010). During the period 2003 to 2008India’s population increased by 8% while food grains increased by 5% only. All these indicators showthe food scarcity in India and even in rural India the situation is worse.7. Food Policy of the Government of IndiaThe food policy of the government of India has two components. One is to sell food grains atsubsidised rates through the PDS and the other is fixation of minimum support price of food grains andprocurement of food grains to build stock through the levy system. In the PDS, the food grains are soldto below poverty line (BPL) families at lower prices and to above the BPL families at higher priceswhich is called targeted PDS. In order to sell food grains through the PDS the government purchasefood from the market. Sometimes purchases are made directly from the producers and sometimespurchases from the traders through the levy system. The levy system requires that traders can sell foodgrains in the market only they have sold the levied amount to the government. Declaration of minimumsupport price ensures that market price does not fall below this level so long as the government isprepared to purchase the entire quantity which is offered for sale at this price. By this system both theproducers and consumers are directly benefitted by getting fair prices.7.1 Weakness of the Food PolicyThe followings are the weaknesses of the food policy:28 | P a g ewww.iiste.org

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Food Science and Quality Management www.iiste.orgISSN 2224-6088 (Paper) ISSN 2225-0557 (Online)Vol 1, 2011 i) In many states the rationing system is flawed. The poor people do not get food grains from the rationshops at a subsidised rate. The dishonest ration dealers sell food grains in the open market at higherprices through the PDS and food security of the poor is hampered. ii) The lists of BPL families are not faultless. In fact there are some families who are actually poor areexcluded from the list and some rich families included in the BPL list because of the intervention of thepolitical parties.iii) Only rice, wheat and sugar and are sold through PDS. But people require other necessary foodparticles like pulses, edible oils and green vegetables etc. which are sold at higher prices and hencefood security is disturbed.iv) In PDS system though the government announces the minimum support price the agencies cannotpurchase the entire quantity offered due to lack of buffer stock of food grains and hence the producersare forced to sell their product at lower prices to private traders.v) In case of fiscal deficit the government is forced to curtail subsidy and food grains are sold at ahigher prices against the PDS. Despite the huge stock of food grains available in FCI godowns hungerand death are still reported due to the failure of the PDS system. The PDs is flawed food systembecause the millions of the deserving poor does not actually benefitted by this system, the governmentis very much talks about and spends less.vi) Food security not only depends upon the supply of food grains but also by the purchasing capacityof the buyers. Moreover food security requires safe drinking water, primary health facilities, basiceducation and healthy environment. In the absence of these basic facilities India is still lagging behindother countries in attaining food security.8. Remedial MeasuresThe following measures which India can adopt for attaining sustainable food security:i) From Malthusian theory of population growth we know that population grow faster than the foodsupply. To stabilize the population the birth and death rate are almost to be equal. Only stablepopulation can assure sustainable food security.ii) Sustainable land management is necessary here for sustainable food security. Conservation of land,soil erosion has to be stopped, pollution should be controlled and land fertility must be restored to raisefood production.iii) Water scarcity is very much related to food scarcity. Rain water harvesting, reduction of excessiveirrigation water, change in cropping pattern (i.e. produce food crops which requires less water), samewater should be used for many purposes, water recharge, controlling water pollution etc. are necessaryto food security.iv) For achieving food security pollution of water, air, land, less use of chemical fertiliser, insecticidesand pesticides, forestation, plantation, bio-diversity etc must be controlled to protect common propertyresources not only for the present but also for the future generation.v) For absorptions of food investment in social sectors like health, education, nutrition, social securitymeasures, provision of safe drinking water etc. must be raised. It is a matter of fact that in India publichealth care system has totally collapsed and even the private health care facilities are located in theurban areas and benefit very few (Meeta and Rajiblochan 2010) Hence the health care facilities must beimproved any how to raise the standard of living of the commons.vi) “Right to food” bill should be recognised as fundamental rights. A right based approach to foodsecurity imposes obligations on national governments to establish non-discriminatory and non politicallaws to ensure that their populations have accessed to adequate food. All countries are directed toimplement the right to food bill through a resolution to eradicate hunger by 2025. Both the Central andState government and the National Advisory Council (NAC) are responsible to ensure food security forall citizens at any cost.29 | P a g ewww.iiste.org

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Food Science and Quality Management www.iiste.orgISSN 2224-6088 (Paper) ISSN 2225-0557 (Online)Vol 1, 2011vii) Integrated Child Development Scheme (ICDS), pension and cash benefit schemes for mother etc.are adopted by the government for the inclusion of the vulnerable sections of the society. Mid-day mealprogramme was introduced for children between ages 2-14 attending schools. Production of foodgrains increased 4 fold from 51 million tons in 1951 to 217 tons in 2007. Though cereal production hasgrowing faster than the population growth but the production has lagged behind.viii) For the improvement of health basic medicines must be supplied for all (Srinivasan S. 2011). Aspart of Universal Access to Healthcare, good quality healthcare should be accessible, affordable andavailable to all in need. Providing quality medicines to all at free services in all our public facilities isan important task to our health department of the government and the pharmaceutical industries alsocooperate in this respect.ix) The most recent effort to improve the hunger situation is the National Food Security Bill (NFSB) isheaded by the NAC to cover 90% of the rural and 50% of the urban population to improve the hungersituation. But this actually covered only 465 of the rural and 28% of the urban population.Multinational companies are grabbing the India’s most productive agricultural lands, two-crop andthree-crop zones called Special Economic Zones, to set up urban industrial estate for commercialpurposes and create shortage of agricultural land for food production. Under the NFSB the governmentmust take some necessary actions against these grabbing of fertile agricultural lands.xi) NREGP and self employment programmes may helped in improving incomes and hence thepurchasing power (through employment generation) and can also access to food and nutrition to thecommon peoples (Dev S.M. and Sharma A.N. 2010). Under the national food security law, thegovernment wants to provide rice and wheat to the poorest of the poor at Rs. 3 per Kg. Due to changesin consumption pattern demand for fruits, vegetables, dairy, meat, poultry and fisheries have beenincreasing. There is need to crop diversification and improve allied activities.xii) According to MDG a promise signed by all world governments to achieve global poverty to halvethe rate by 2015. Foreign aid has an important role to reduce poverty, in building governmentinstitutions and in pioneering new ideas for development, is only a small part of the solution to theglobal poverty and food crisis. Rich country governments are also under pressure to honour theirpromises to increase aid budgets to 0.7% of national income. As the average for 2009 was only 0.31%,there is considerably scope for improving current level for foreign aid, around 120 billion US dollar perannum.Conclusion:As food is the first and foremost basic necessity of life, absence of food security leads to social andpolitical instability which is contrary to economic development of any country. The problem is not onlylocated in India but also all over the globe. Food security requires safe drinking water, primary healthfacilities, basic education and healthy environment. Sustainable land management is necessary here.Conservation of land, soil erosion has to be stopped, pollution should be controlled and land fertilitymust be restored to raise food production. For achieving food security pollution of water, air, land, lessuse of chemical fertiliser, insecticides and pesticides, forestation, plantation, bio-diversity etc must becontrolled to protect common property resources not only for the present but also for the futuregeneration. We see that some times food crisis is not due to lack of food supply. It is the failure of PDSand the crisis not food crisis, it is the policy crisis of the government. Hence in the interest of thesustainable economic development for achieving sustainable food security every government of theworld must adopt some urgent measures and should work united to make the world free from hunger.References:Bairagya R. and Bairagya H. (2011), “Water Scarcity a Global Problem- An Economic Analysis”,Indian Journal of Landscape Systems and Ecological Studies, Vol.-34, Institute of Landscape, Ecology& Ekistics, Kolkata, 127-13230 | P a g ewww.iiste.org